In The Darkest of Nights
by Slytherin Cat
Summary: Many people just never realize just how full of light the night is - or a collection of moments during the Carrows' year at Hogwarts. 1. DeanLavender 2. DudleyPadma
1. Chapter 1

_Word count:_ 1250

**all that I am, all that I ever was is here in your perfect eyes**

You can't remember how it started, how you went from Dean and Lavender to DeanLavender, a single item, unbreakable through the storm that rages in this world.

You can't remember when you started to notice her, but you definitely know it's during this year.

_(In a way, it makes you want to thank this war, because it brought you this one good thing you know you would never have had otherwise._

_And then you look at the young first years' faces, scared and scarred, and you just want to throw up for being so selfish.)_

You weren't supposed to get together, because Lavender is the kind of girl you used to mock, back then when everything was normal, because Lavender's all laughs and giggles and smile and just that kind of joy you don't think you ever felt.

She's full of colors and they shine in every direction, without any kind of sense.

You're a painter, and to you she was that painting you knew could be great but was unfinished and would always be, like the artist who had painted it had forgotten to finish it.

It scared you, because you just can't stand to see something unfinished, and you knew that if you let yourself you would do everything to try to finish that piece so it could finally shine just right.

It wasn't until you got to know her that you realized how wrong you were, that what you had seen had just been what you had wanted to see.

You expected a shallow girl so you saw one, all quick lines and simple colors, and that's what you saw. And then the war came and she told you to run, to hide so you could be safe. She helped everyone and risked her life for things you wouldn't have thought mattered to her, and you saw the masterpiece she truly was.

_(It still scares you sometimes to think how close you had been to destroy this, to erase the hero hidden in the girl and replace it by something you would have thought worthy._

_It wouldn't have been anything less than murder, and you're very glad you never truly approached her before you came back to Hogwarts so you could help your friends resisting.)_

You fell quickly and she did too. One day you were telling her what Ginny and Luna had told you to relay, the next you were part of a raid to the kitchens and the next you were kissing her and she was kissing you, and though it was still war and you were still on the List, you tasted freedom for the first time of the year.

The following week passed just as quickly, and now you find yourself in front of her, in a small alcove you asked the Room to provide.

She's warm in your embrace, and you tell her 'come with me'. Her eyes are brown and inviting and she says 'yes' with a smile that still makes your heart skips a beat.

She wears her hair in a messy ponytail and she's a far-cry from the girl who used to do her nails in the Gryffindor Common Room just last year and who was hanging herself around Ron's neck, but all you can think is 'this is her' and 'I love her, how did I not see her before'.

It's a date and a year ago you would have been terribly nervous, laughing with Seamus at your feeble attempts to tie your tie.

Instead a door opens behind you and you offer her your hand, and it's all so natural you could just have well be strolling down the park.

The tunnel is dark and yet it doesn't feel threatening.

_(The Room provided it after all, and you asked for protection on this path. It's the least you can do to protect the treasure you have beside you, and you will do anything to keep her just as perfect as she is, strong and yet so gentle when she needs to be._

_You never stood for any piece of art to be destroyed after all, and Lavender is already so much more than that._

_She deserves the world, but the world is not yours to give, so instead of giving her the world you'll show her the sky, because you know she loves it and hasn't seen it in far too long._

_You hope she'll understand what you mean by it, that it's the words you can't say yet, and as you feel her fingers wrapped in yours you know she will.)_

You emerge in the middle of the Forbidden Forest. You're in a small clearing, but the night sky shines through the small gap in the trees above you. She lets out a small gasps of wonder and you know you made the right choice from the way she looks so serene with the wind in her hair.

You look at her and think that it's the most beautiful sight of the world.

_(Your hand itches for paper and a pencil, but this time it's not to fix anything. You want to immortalize this instant for eternity; you want to rest of the world to be able to see what you see, just once and for forever. You want them to see this goddess walking beside you hiding in the impossibility that is a human body; you want to show the world exactly who is Lavender Brown._

_You want them to be jealous of you and you want them to understand why you're the luckiest man in the whole universe.)_

"You know I'm not going to freak out, right?" She asks, and though her eyes are unusually shiny, she's smiling with mirth.

"Of course you won't," you state.

She smiles, you smile and you let yourself be pulled to the ground next to her, lying on your back under the stars you both hadn't seen in a while.

She looks to the sky and tells you stories about them, she tells you that Mars is bright and that the end is coming but that she can't see what it'll be.

She soon loses herself in the stars and constellations that shine prettily above your heads, and you're pretty sure she's reciting the whole Astronomy book by now, but you can't help but stare at her instead of looking at what she describes for you.

There's a far more beautiful sight for you to see after all, and it's right beside you, telling you that stars are like people, they tell things without meaning to and make you learn when you don't want to.

If she knows anything about the way you stare at her and ignore the sight you brought her to see, she doesn't say anything. You know she knows though, because her hand is holding just a bit too tight on yours, and there's a soft smile on her lips.

It's perfection, and you both know you'll have to go back to reality soon enough. For now though, you're in this frozen picture of happiness and you'll stay there for as long as you can.

_(You won't tell her you love her tonight, but she knows._

_When you'll come back to the castle with you, she'll kiss you goodnight, and say 'tell me everything tomorrow, will you?'._

_You'll nod but inside you'll just be hoping you'll be able to.)_

**AN/**

**Yes, I'm starting yet another collection. The idea came to me in one of my sleepless nights, and I liked it. So here it is, with a DeanLavender as its first piece.**

**The title comes from a line of Snow Patrol's Chasing Cars, which I also used for inspiration.**

**This was written for the:**

**-Apprentice Competition, Round Three (Word: freedom, Dialogue: "You know I'm not going to, right?", Pairing: Dean/Lavender, Word: impossibility, Setting: the Forbidden Forest)  
-Music Appreciation Challenge: Snow Patrol – Chasing Cars.**

**Please review to let me know what you thought.**


	2. there's distance and there's silence

_Word count:_1079

**there's distance and there's silence, your words have never left me**

Padma has always known that the war would come. She's a Ravenclaw and she's smart, but more than that she's also on the right side.

She'll fight for the Light until her dying breath if that's what it takes for them to win.

_(She doesn't want to die though, but just in case she wants to live her life fully so she can have no regrets._

_She's already lost so much time in her first six years at Hogwarts, and she only had a summer left to make memories worth remembering._

_She's read somewhere that lost time can never be found again, and she never wanted something to be wrong as much as she wants this idea to be. But it's true and she's seventeen and maybe she won't even see her eighteenth birthday, and there's nothing she can do to go back in time and heal everything that should never have been hurt in the first place.)_

It's because she wants to be prepared that she spends her holidays discovering the Muggle world.

After all, it is only natural that she knows what she's going to fight for. If she has to die for a cause, she wants to know everything of it.

_(And the Muggle world had blown her mind away. It was completely different from what she knew, like stepping in another world and yet there was this sense of similarity that told her this could be home too.)_

She had only wanted to discover this new world, to make memories and maybe to help some people, to find innocent people who could remember her as just another normal person they met.

She wanted that, the anonymity the Muggle world gave her. Had she been any more of a coward, she would have stayed.

But Padma isn't a coward, and she knows she has a duty to her own world.

She just hadn't expected to fall in love.

_(His name is Dudley Dursley, and he isn't handsome or particularly remarkable. He's not intelligent like the people in her House, and his parents are weird._

_He's a bit overweight but she knows he's been losing weight, and he has secrets._

_She doesn't know what they are, and she doesn't give an inkling that she suspects he might have one. She doesn't want to know – it's not her place – and he'll tell her if he can._

_She hides his magic from him, so she supposes it's only fair._

_She had decided to help him though, because he seemed so clearly out of his depth that it was worrying. He looks lost, like he had lost something good he didn't know he had, and like it's only his pride that's holding him together, refusing to let him fall apart and spills everything he wants to._

_And she discovered a sweet boy underneath a strangely toughened exterior, and she fell for him just as he fell for her.)_

Dudley makes the whole summer-making-memories thing enjoyable and totally worth it. Padma doesn't know if it's because it's him, or the place or just plain love, but when she gets back to Hogwarts it tears a piece of her heart apart.

Then Hogwarts is run by Death Eaters and the world falls into darkness around her, and it's all she can do to cling onto those small memories of sunshine and kisses in front of a medium spring green sea they watched through colored lenses.

It's hard to focus on lessons when she's always comparing them to how things used to be, and she finds that even Professor Sprout's lessons of Herbology, which she had always loved, can't take her mind off the screams coming from the dungeons they can all hear at night.

_(She thinks that those could be his screams, because he's a 'just' a Muggle after all, and it fills her with such resolve she can almost feel herself burning up._

_She'll keep fighting even after all hope is lost, because she can bear the thought of giving up and what it might mean for Dudley._

_She hopes it won't come to that though.)_

She counts down the day until the year is over and joins the DA to fight against their school's invasion. She suffers through Crucios for disobedience and she heals young first years.

She feels useful yet useless, but she can feel in her bones that something will happen at the end of the year.

Something always happen at the end of the year, and it always involves Harry Potter.

She keeps track of what's happening on PotterWatch, and sometimes she looks to the moon and tell herself that it will soon be all over, one way or another.

_(Sometimes in her sleep she'll go back in time, and visit that one perfect summer that's now gone, burnt away by the sun until all that remains are the memories of their love and the knowledge that love can touch us one time and last for a lifetime._

_Sometimes she'll see him when she told him she was going skydiving._

_She had asked him to come and he had said 'What the...! Are you crazy? I'll never do this!'._

_In the end they had jumped hand in hand and fell through the air just as fast as they had fallen in love.)_

Sometimes when she looks up to see a heavy clouded sky, she entertains the thought that she'll try to go back to this small village by the sea and find him again.

She dreams they'll live together forever, and that there's no war anywhere. Maybe she'll even see children around them.

And then the sky will clear up and she'll know that the love they had shared is the kind of love she can only keep safe in her heart, hidden from sight and from the minds of everyone who doesn't need to know about it, which means everyone but the two of them.

She wants him to be beside her and she wants to be beside him, but she knows they can't ever be. He'll marry some nice Muggle girl and she'll try to survive this war.

She'll keep their love alive and strong in her mind and in her heart, and she'll never forget him, but she'll also move on, because that's what they have promised each other to do.

_(And who knows? Maybe they'll find each other again in another life.)_

**AN/**

**Probably the weirdest pairing I've ever written, but it seemed to fit… Somehow.**

**The title is once again from one of Snow Patrol's songs. This one's New York. There's also a couple of line from Celine Dion's My Heart Will Go On, those don't belong to me.**

**This was written for the:**

**-Light&Darkness Competition, Round Three  
-Music Appreciation Challenge, Snow Patrol – New York.**

**Please review.**


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